Then, again, as to the passage which he has adduced from the inspired history concerning Abimelech, and God’s choosing to
close up every womb in his household that the women should not bear children, and afterwards opening them that they might
become fruitful, what is all this to the point? What has it to do with that shameful concupiscence which is now the question
in dispute? Did God, then, deprive those women of this feeling, and give it to them again just when He
liked? The punishment however, was that they were unable to bear children, and the blessing that they were able to bear them,
after the manner of this corruptible flesh. For God would not confer such a blessing upon this body of death, as only that
body of life in paradise could have had before sin entered; that is, the process of conceiving without the prurience of lust,
and of bearing children without excruciating pain. But why should we not suppose, since, indeed, Scripture says that every
womb was closed, that this took place with something of pain, so that the women were unable to bear cohabitation, and that
God inflicted this pain in His wrath, and removed it in His mercy? For if lust was to be taken away as an impediment to begetting
offspring, it ought to have been taken away from the men, not from the women. For a woman might perform her share in cohabitation
by her will, even if the lust ceased by which she is stimulated, provided it were not absent from the man for
exciting him; unless, perhaps (as Scripture informs us that even Abimelech himself was healed), he would tell us that virile
concupiscence was restored to him. If, however, it were true that he had lost this, what necessity was there that he should
be warned by God to hold no connection with Abraham’s wife? The truth is, Abimelech is said to have been healed, because his
household was cured of the affliction which smote it.